With Eve gone, only sub based MMOs left are FFXIV and WoW

[Jandor]

Now that's news. What for? a zerg-type kamikazi fleet?
But yeah, granted, I forgot about the market manipulators skewing the Jita boards, however... construction, rly? I'm a somewhat "mid-tier" player, and I thought that the heavy industrialists were all in POSses, since you basically can't offer competitive prices with all those taxes...

Do you still play? If not depending on how long you've been away you might be interested in knowing that POSes are getting phased out slowly now in favour of Citadels and other less fiddly buildings. Putting up POSes in HS isn't particularly difficult though, hasn't been for a very long time. I had a few in HS along with a few customs offices back when I played.

As for low SP players and cheap ships, try looking up Pandemic Horde, Brave Newbies, or Karmafleet. TEST Alliance also has a newbie division but I can't remember its name. Pandemic Horde at least was a pretty big player in the recent war that forced Goonswarm out of the north.
You're mostly right, the desire for newbies is at its most simple about having a bigger zerg. The sovereignty system also changed fairly recently as well though. When you try to take a systems flag it spews control nodes throughout the whole constellation for you to contest. The whole system is a bit overly complicated but essentially the idea is to spread fights throughout an area rather than have one massive stand up brawl.
Cheap fast ships to chase away people trying to hack the nodes in the system where the main fight isn't are rather useful.

E: I also forgot to mention, it's a new game to new players. They still find it all exciting, pay for a bunch of cheap ships, gift them to 20-30 new players and then ask them to go on a suicide roam through enemy territory. They'll have a great time and be a right pain for all the miners and PvEers there.